The tale of the masked thief
by slicedtoast
Summary: This is a story of a man from another universe. A story of forgiveness, love, adventure, dark pasts, and a lonely masked thief. What does fate have in store for the gray mask? Read on and find out. Sly Cooper X OC. (Rated M for Violence, Adult situations)


The Tail of Rynjin- Chapter 01

The night air was crisp, almost chilling, however the breeze from the east made the air almost toasty warm. The top of the radio tower swayed slightly in the afternoon wind, causing a light whistling noise. A figure was crouched on the very top of the antenna, a light noise of police sirens echo in the distance. The figure tensed just a bit, hearing the incoming law head towards a small building on the wharf. The figure is dressed in a light gray under-suit, with an off colored brown trench coat hanging over his well-built physique. The oddest thing on this person is his blackened top-hat sitting atop the light gray mask over his face. The mask only had one eye but the eye itself was more of a lens, ever twitching ever focusing, a silent mechanism ever moving ever changing. Rynjin thought to himself as the wind blew slightly past his mask, the internal dampeners in his mask nearly cutting out all of the noise from the wind, the weight in his hip pouch tugged at his belt. Opening the flap from the pouch situated on his hip, the glittering gold idol seemed to almost grin at him from the comfort of his leather pouch.

"Well Rynjin, another successful heist all according to plan, well now what is on the new reel this fine evening." Rynjin mumbled to himself.

After a few presses on his gauntlet, the inner monitor inside of his mask flicked to life. The wireless connector hooked up to a nearby internet cafe, or a private home, hell Rynjin even stole typical bandwidth from innocent places, not sure if this was some sort of irony Rynjin shook his head. The headlines were already rolling in off of the typical blog sites, small websites, and a few small internet publishers, "Mysterious top hat thief had just stolen the ankh cat of Menoso." The headline read August 30th, 2014, and like always there were no pictures of him, not of him getting into the small warehouse, or somehow managing to find the secret safe that was located in the building in the first place. Rynjin always seems to ponder after most of his heists, what lead him to his life of theft, crime, and just generally nastiness. It never really seemed to phase him, or maybe the headlines and articles were right, maybe he had just turned into, "Another mask for hire to steal anything". However, he needed this to survive, most of the tools that he made over the years were from the success of just being good at stealing, and his thieving actions. He also made it a code to never hurt anyone, and heck he even managed to save a few people here and there when his robberies got botched in the process. However, no one could remember any real details about the rescues, and the stories were mostly buried due to the headlines of "Thief" making papers and E-subscriptions sell much faster. Rynjin sighed under his mask again, now he just needed to deliver the item to the potential buyer and get his reward. He found that over the years making sure that you get paid without getting killed, stabbed, or just double crossed became something of a game of cat and mouse. Some of his clients were not the most scrupulous, plus most of them were known notorious mobsters, crooked business men, or sometimes just people wanting to make someone else suffer by having something stolen from right under their nose. A few quick flicks on his wrist display brought up his scrambled bank account located in Switzerland, it was still quite full since nothing had been taken out of it in the past three months. The cops had actually tried a man hunt scenario, however with enough capital to make more of his little gadgets, plus a nice underground hideout complete with off the grid electricity, water, and gas, finding him pretty darned impossible.

Rynjin's little day dream came to an end as soon as he saw a blinking light over his bank account, showing that there was a transfer in process. Usually after the money was deposited in the account there would be a scrambled note telling him where the drop off point for the item would be. The payment rolled in, a nice crisp $500,000 flooded into his account like a dam breaking from too much water, it was in this small moment that Rynjin felt alive, and like this entire night was not a complete waste. The note that came in behind the payment had a series of numbers and letter, he used his scrambling program to quickly decipher the message, "East Wharf, off of 10th Avenue Huntington Beach. Drop off at 12 sharp." As soon as the message was receive Rynjin smiled his usual devilish smile, and without a moment's hesitation jumped from the top of the radio tower. The wind rushed by in a hot blur from the night's air, Rynjin slowly plummeting to the ground the radio tower just behind him, its red and white struts playing like the white lines in the middle of a road. The mask estimated the total distance to the ground, it seemed like now we be a good of a time as ever. People always wondered how he was able to get around town undetected. With a simple twist of his wrist, two small reinforced joystick handles shot into Rynjin's hands, and with a practiced motion he depressed the two smaller red buttons at the bottom of the handles. Twin hooks flew from the back of the trench coat, hooking on the tower, one of them wrapped around a central beam giving him a point, while the other grabbed much higher allowing an axis of rotation. The sudden drop was turned into a spin, which morphed into a flinging motion around the tower using his own momentum. After flying around the tower to gain speed, Rynjin pressed the red buttons again, a hiss of compressed gas shot from under the trench coat, and both hooks let go of the tower at once. The forward momentum propelled him for about a few city blocks, allowing him more time to set up his next grapple areas. It was almost like watching a ballet in motion, as soon as his forward momentum started to crawl, Rynjin just found another outcropping building to pull towards, launching himself at full speed once more. He really did like this mode of transport, and its use as a getaway vehicle, not only was it stealthy. Sadly the gas hiss once in a while was a dead giveaway to his current location. The limited flight seemed to give him a sense of freedom soaring like a superhero.

It only took a couple of minutes to travel across town using this method, avoiding traffic, pedestrians, as well as cops. He slowed to crawl, attaching himself to a billboard overlooking the drop location. Rynjin was always aware of betrayal, it was almost common place now, wanting to make sure that the "help" did not squeal on his employer. Rynjin pulled back his wrist controls, replacing on his left hand a small collapsible crossbow, it was another invention of his own design, able to fire small bolts in rapid succession, plus it kept with the whole "quiet" mentality of his persona, not wanting anyone to hear anything. He fired the bolt right at his target, right behind the dumpster where the drop was ordered the small filament wire still connected to the spool located at the bottom of the crossbow. Using the excess wire, and with a little cutting motion from his knife, the wire severed easily. Putting the satchel on the wire he gave it a gentle push, letting the bag slide down the wire, almost like a ghost stalking its prey. The bag thumped against the dumpster, before the sound of the reverberating dumpster even died down, Rynjin was already back in the air, his gas tanks humming from the constant use, soaring into the night sky.

The night was still young, and if there were any more contracts on the market, then Rynjin might have felt to obliged to maybe do more, a couple months laying low can get someone all pent up. He stopped at his usual spot, sitting on top of the Los Angeles stadium floodlights, the glittering lights and passing cars on the freeway soothed him. He stared across the highway looking at the small cluster of buildings that stood as a testament to new technology for California, this time of night everyone was home sleeping, the only people that were out now were late night time card punchers, parties, and maybe a few bad deals. However, his mask picked up a slight variation on one of the larger buildings located in the center of the complex, a light seemed to be on, on one the highest floors no doubt. Rynjin just shook it off, thinking that maybe someone was working late, however it was the several flashes that occurred in a few rooms away from the lighted one, which drew his attention. It was not the type of flashes that could be attributed to lights, but flashes that most likely came from a gun. Rynjin sighed, he never did like playing a hero when it came to situations like this. However, he could not live with himself if someone needed help, plus besides, this story will most likely be buried like it always does (like they always do, like all the rest, etc). With a heavy sigh and a solid leap off of the floodlights Rynjin darted on the wind towards the building.

The approach was about what he expected, there was no one on the roof, or even looking towards the roof, people today only thought that cops use the roof as an entrance, due to the abundant use of choppers. The top door on the roof was of course, locked, this did not really come as a shock, since there was quite the rise in domestic crimes as of late. Rynjin could not take all of the credit, most of it had to do with the downfall of the dollar, and the fact that anyone with a gun and a half decent plan thinks that he could pull off the perfect job. A small set of lock picks slid silently out of Rynjin pocket, and in the fastest of flashes, the door simply gave way to his superior skills. The door itself opened with nary a hiss out of the hydraulic lock at the top, the top hat bobbed and darted down the stairs, making sure to pick out the corner of the concrete steps making nary a sound in the empty stairwell, however the closer he seemed to get to the 48th floor, the more a series of voices slowly came to the forefront of his ears. His moderate frame came to rest at the door leading to the 48th floor, and in a blink of an eye he was past the door and into the floor, not sure what lay in wait for him.

The room felt damp, he could not really feel the outside temperature past his suit and trench-coat, however over the years of doing these small jobs, a sixth sense was slowly engrained into him. The voices were getting louder now, and the faint sounds of crying along with begging followed the small pauses in talking, almost as if the noises were filling in the jagged spaces left by the quiet. One easy leap up and Rynjin balanced on the scaffolding on the top areas of the room, it seemed that this floor was nothing but particle board walls, segmented like a cubical area seen in large offices. There were five men by the looks of it, all near the corner area of the building, three of them were looking towards someone in the corner, while the other two were panning around the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Paper and files looked tossed around the room, tables had been overturned, desks had been gone through, and there were small patches of blood on one desk. Rynjin knew this scene all too well, liking knowing the plot to your favorite movie, you could almost call out what would happen next. Someone wanted information from someone in this office, he had hid it of course, it might have been his life's work, or hell even something special to him. Something that important merited a special hiding place, away from anyone willing to steal it, or buy it. These men were going to beat whoever had this information, or item, to death, or until he told them where it was, then after they had their hands on it, would just simply wipe the man from existence, maybe even set fire to the place. Rynjin's fists seems to clench almost naturally, his knuckles popping under his gloves. The voices were almost all around him, but after years of training he was able to isolate each one with a perfect clarity. Meanwhile his helmet's interface was already scanning the people trying to make a connection with criminal databases around the globe, hopefully it would give him a slight edge on whoever he was dealing with.

"Ok old man I am done playing games with you, I shot you in the leg to demonstrate that I am done playing around with you," said one man with the well-kept goatee. He slowly waved a smoking Beretta around to punctuate his sentence.

"Listen to me, you don't know what you are dealing with, I am trying to change the world, imagine a world without a power need. Or even a world that does not even need to worry about power," groaned a man in a white lab coat, he was bleeding badly from a gunshot wound on his leg.(repetitive statement about power, consider revising)

"Boss I don't know why we are even bothering with this old man, he is a German for god's sake, why don't we just finish him off and take the damn energy thing?" hollered the bulky man pacing the room farthest from the group.

"Well, it's simple you moron. We can't access the power source, it's in a secure room just at the end of this floor, and I;m betting this guy has gone through the liberty of taking a precautions against people like us," said the well groomed man, his eyes flashing at the man on the floor.

The man on the floor seemed to sink farther down than he already could, it seemed that this leader had managed to figure out his bluff, and knew that the system was booby trapped. The helmet finally came back with some information regarding these five men, according to Interpol as well as the L.A.P.D (Los Angeles Police Department), these men worked for an underworld boss. The only name that was given was he was called "The silent Informant," it says that he got that name because of his ability to control information and to get technical information to very...dirty people. These five seemed to be one of his squads, sent out to expunge some information out this poor man. The main leader of the group seemed to go by the alias of "Brick", even though he was not dumb like one, he seemed to have a way with people, making them sweat out the information.

"Please, I have a wife and two grandchildren, don't do anything too hasty please," the scientist hoarsely called out. "If you want this thing that badly then...I shall give it you," he said hesitantly.

Sadly Rynjin even knew this play by heart, the old man was going to trigger the fail safe, but he was going to wait till all of these men were close to it, that way he knew he could take all of them with him. It was a brave move, and Rynjin had a soft spot for men doing something this stupid to protect the ones he loved, a small pain snaked its way into Rynjin's shoulder, he rubbed it quietly. It seemed that even in this heated moment, there were always old war wounds that seemed to come back to the present. Rynjin crawled back into his mind, it was almost hurting time, and he needed to get nice and ready. First target was the man farthest away from the group, he would easily draw two or three men over wondering what happened to their buddy, and then he could easily take out the other three men in a flash. After that the last man standing would be the boss, this "Brick", he was still uncertain on how big of a pain he would be. After a few seconds of scrambling on the overhangs, he was over the larger man in the corner, the doctor was being hauled to his feet. Rynjin switched his helmet to night vision, the lenses in the eye piece did its fast rotating motion giving a bright green appearance to everything in the room. Two of his hooks flew out of the back of his trench-coat latching into the side walls, and in one swift motion Rynjin dropped.

The large man below him never saw it coming, Rynjin landing on either side of his collar bone with his knees, I don't care how many sit-ups or pushups, hell even how many fights you have been in, when your collar bone snaps like a twig, you are just done. As soon as the man cursed, as the air passed out of his lungs, the light switches behind him immediately flipped to the off position bathing the room in darkness. Shouts of alarm echoed through the room, the cables zipped Rynjin back to the top of the rafters, a silent hiss of gas escaping his canister on his lower back. Sounds of alarm were replaced with sounds of panic, three of the men broke off from their boss, fanning out, taking out flashlights panning around the room trying to see where their friend had gone. Keeping the cables slack, Rynjin ran across the tops of the rafters, planning his next move, in a swift motion he dropped down towards the man that was the closest to the windows. A swift kick to his head as he descended from the top of the office area was all it took to render the man unconscious. Before the body had even hit the floor Rynjin zipped back up to the ceiling waiting to see the response of the two other men. The boss had already picked up the older man, and drug him into the sealed area in the back of the floor, this "Brick" was pretty smart, knowing that in that sealed room, there would only be one way in or out, making the area of approach obvious. The other two men were worried now, almost on the verge of panicking. From above they were easy targets, taking out his hand crossbow, Rynjin planted one of his "Sleeping Darts" right on the side of his neck, the man only got a few words out, they sounded like a muttered message as if he had gone right into shock. He face planted on the tile with a dull thud, the last man seeing his partner take the fall. He panned up with his flashlight, but Rynjin was already gone and crouching on the floor, he had detached his hooks from the ceiling. The next few seconds were like a blur to Rynjin, a well-practiced blur, he took out one of his knives, flipped it over so the flat side of the handle faced outwards, it had to be known however this side of the knife made an excellent brass knuckle, it was how he designed it. The edges of the handle came down to a mulch-triangle point, making sure that surface contact was both assured and painful. Rynjin darted between the cubicles, making sure that the thug saw him, the man fired wildly, missing by feet and yards. The gap was less than forty feet, but it was closed in a hurry. The man had just run out of ammo for his Beretta, the clip noisily hit the floor as he ejected it, that's when he struck. The sickening thwack against the man's jaw was all too familiar to Rynjin, it was the sound of unconsciousness if that even had a sound, the man did a full rotation and fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Rynjin let out a sigh, now comes the hard part.

The back office looked well reinforced, where the other cubicle's looked to be the usual three walls and an entrance, in comparison the room in the corner had metal, with a few very large cables leading into the base of the eastern most wall. Rynjin slowly crept up to the door, it was slightly ajar, making for an easy peak around the door jam, the old man was typing on a locking mechanism for some sort of device, and the man named "Brick" had a gun to his head, all the while yelling at him making him shake with fear. Rynjin played all of the scenarios in his head, all of them ended badly, the old man would die, there is no way that he could get to Brick without him shooting the man in the back of the head. Instead he knew that he had to wait, till the object was free of the safe, then, and only then could he make his move. Time seemed to crawl by, Brick constantly yelling, the old man trying to get him to calm down, everything just slowed. Finally with a final hiss on the seal, the small device came free of the wall, it was about the size of a softball, however it was completely silver, there were some visible seams but even from here Rynjin could feel raw power coming from it. It was now or never.

Rynjin launched himself into the room, Brick had both hands on the device, so if he did want to shoot anyone he was going to have to either drop the orb, or try to shoot with his hands full, either one was going to take time, and time was something Brick was running out of. Rynjin leapt over the main console located in the center of the room, one of his cables was running from the backside of his trench-coat, he tossed the other end to the doctor.

"Tie this around your waist if you want to live," said the mechanical voice outside of Rynjin's helmet

The doctor did not even hesitate, however Brick did, he fired off a wild shot three feet to the left of Rynjin, hitting the corner of the console in the center of the room, sparks started to shoot from the panels. The doctor was almost done fastening the loose end of the grapple cable around his waist, Rynjin stepped towards Brick, bringing the backside of his knife into contact with his face. Brick did not fall, he swayed back ever so slightly damping the blow of the brass knuckle portion of the knife. Rynjin cursed under his helmet, this guy knew that a fight was all about the right moments, he did not catch him off guard. The second shot rang from Brick's gun, this one however did not miss, and a wet splotch noise erupted from Rynjin's hip, a dull red started to pool on his pants.

"Mother of...he somehow got between some of my armor plates, lucky ass shot," Rynjin groaned to himself.

Rynjin used his forward momentum to bring a solid knee to Brick's solar plexus, causing the large man to heave. The second hit from the brass knuckle hit home, with no sway back, Brick still however did not go down, he just took a knee. Rynjin knew that his window was done, not to mention this gun shot was going to start hurting as soon as his adrenaline wore off. With one press of the button located on his left hand joystick, he and the old man flew backwards and out the door.

"How much longer till that device of yours goes off?" Rynjin hollered at the old man.

"How do you know about..." started the old man.

"Never mind how I know, how much time do we..." Rynjin was silenced as the air seemed to get sucked back into the room that Brick was in.

"You young fool, we will both die now, I just wanted to make sure my device was not going to end up in the wrong hands, now part of this building is just going to vanish," stammered the old man.

Rynjin had no time for this crap, with a fluid movement he disengaged the line tied around the old man, and just threw him towards the elevator, he will admit, either he was getting stronger or the old man just knew how to fly across a room. The old man hit near the elevator doors with a dull thud, however Rynjin could see him getting up trying to hit the elevator button. Rynjin turned back towards the sealed room, only to see the air around himself start to...thicken? It was like a great bubble of water was engulfing him, however the helmet did not register anything other than simple air. The walls bent in on themselves, flying towards the center of the sealed room, Rynjin could see Brick, or what was left of him, and the device seemed to be imploding taking Brick with it. Rynjin took out his other combat knife, and dug both of them into hard steel ground, they did not dig deep enough to merit a good foothold. Chairs flew past Rynjin going into the center of the implosion, so...this was how it was going to end? Being drug into some sort of science experiment gone wrong? Well on a plus note the old man would live, maybe see his family again, it was a vain hope but it brought a smile to Rynjin's face.

Rynjin was not sure what gave out first, the knives, his hands, the floor, either way he was pulled from the floor and was being sucked right into the blackness of the device. Rynjin didn't struggle, it would be like trying to swim against a tsunami, pointless and a waste of energy. So he just let it take him, he holstered his knives and went limp.

"Well let's see if there is such a thing as an afterlife," Rynjin thought to himself as he was swallowed by the blackness.

The outside of the building shuttered and rattled, then just as quickly as it had begun, the tremors ended. However at the top of the building it looked like a perfect sphere was missing out of the building, bisecting the floors, taking the lights, it was if someone took a circle and just punched a hole in the building. Papers floated down in the office, lights flickered, and everything was quiet except for one old man sitting in the elevator, lightly sobbing.

"Poor boy...I did not want him to die, he just tried to save me. Hopefully the device did not destroy him, just...maybe scattered him to somewhere else," the old man said between sobs, talking to himself to calm his nerves.

"I will remember you masked man."

The elevator door's closed and started to descend to the main floor. The last light on the 48th floor flickered its last gasp, and then died, the silence had once again come to the night. This silence however was somber and sad at the same time, blending together with the outside white noise.

-To be Continued-

Feel free to comment and rate, this chapter was meant to setup the character that is going to be in the Sly Cooper universe. More to come tell me what you all think :)

-Sliced_toast


End file.
